| Shooting
Stars
by Karen O'Connor
I can’t believe I can see your face so clearly! You seem
so close now I could almost reach out and touch you. I can even pick out
the tiny, handsome mole just above your right eyebrow and the familiar
smile lines around your stunning eyes as you walk through the crowd.
I remember the first time I saw a picture of you, your beautiful perfectly
straight teeth dazzling me from the pages of a magazine. ‘The next
big thing’, ‘the new Brad Pitt’ all the newspapers and
glossies claimed as they splashed your picture across the front covers.
As I studied your face, I thought you were just amazing, much better than
Brad Pitt and best of all no love rival in evidence. I guessed you were
just waiting to find Miss Right. I spent all that day scouring the Internet,
finding and downloading pictures of you and pasting them onto my kitchen
wall so I had something to admire whilst doing the washing up every night.
The first time I saw you in the flesh I almost fainted. You were much
taller than I had imagined and slimmer too, but your smile was just as
lovely and your taste in clothes impeccable. I’m sure you saw me
in the crowd of screaming women who were standing outside your hotel that
day, even though there were over fifty of us. I’d made a special
effort to look nice for you. My hair had been styled at the hairdressers,
I spent almost a week trying to decide which dress you’d like best
and then had forked out a small fortune on a room in a hotel near to yours,
to ensure that I’d be right at the front of the crowd so that we
could meet face to face. When you turned and waved at the crowd I am positive
you looked straight at me, our eyes met and your smile broadened. I was
disappointed that the weather was so bad, the rain hadn’t stopped
for about three hours, I remember how wet my dress got. Your minders had
hurried you out of the door of the hotel and straight into a car with
blacked out windows, making sure your designer suit and perfectly groomed
hair were spotless. I had gone home that day, soaked and freezing but
very happy.
After out first meeting I joined your fan club. I felt a little silly
as I filled in the application form, especially when I had to put in my
date of birth. Surely fan clubs are for teenage girls with childish crushes,
not a sensible single woman in her thirties! Still, I couldn’t resist
it when I saw all the posters and T-shirts you could buy with your face
on, and advance notices of film premieres and events you’d be attending.
I used to wait in on the day when I knew your newsletter would arrive
through my door, cursing the postman if he was late. You always signed
each one with a big kiss, and I couldn’t help but imagine that the
kiss was just for me. It was your way of letting me know you cared without
leaking our love for each other to the Press. Those hacks and photographers
could be so annoying and you knew I’d hate to have them camping
outside my front door. Just the other week they faked a photograph of
you kissing another woman! Imagine that. I know how photographs can be
so easily altered these days. I just ripped the picture up and then burnt
it on the gas ring in the kitchen, enjoying watching the flames lick round
that skinny, tanned body you were clasping. I knew you’d never cheat
on me and stopped buying that particular magazine just out of spite.
Our second meeting was so much better than the first. As always I’d
made an effort to look good for you, and wore a red dress because you
had said in an interview last year that red was your favourite colour.
I was one of the first to arrive at the film premiere and got a perfect
spot at the front of the crowd barrier. One of the cameramen who was setting
up even gave me a cup of tea after I’d been there for a couple of
hours, he said he felt sorry for me because I looked so cold and that
those heels must have been killing me. I was perfectly happy though, and
the thought of seeing you eventually made the cold and pain worthwhile.
I wasn’t even cross when you were over an hour late and arrived
with a willowy blonde attached to your side. I expect your agent makes
you take someone along to public events for appearance sake. I screamed
and waved when you began your walk along the red carpet, digging my elbows
furiously into anyone who tried to get in front of me and block my view
of you. This time you definitely saw me, you smiled and raised your hand
at me and I was breathless. I managed to hold out my autograph book and
pen as you came closer, but I guess you were being discreet because you
passed me by and your short, chubby co-star signed his name instead. Still,
at least we got to see each other again and you saw that I’m still
devoted to you. After you’d gone inside to watch your new film,
I waited until it had finished in the hope that I might see you again
when there were less people around. You must have been made to go out
of a different entrance though, because I waited until midnight just in
case you appeared and even missed the last train home.
The very next day, I hobbled to the first screening of your film at my
local cinema, ignoring the blisters that I’d collected on my feet
when waiting for you the previous night. Your acting was amazing and I
cried most of the way through the film and then bought another ticket
and watched it for a second time, just in case I’d missed any of
the hidden meanings you always use in your scripts to speak directly to
me.
Our third meeting was just perfect and confirmed in my heart everything
you’d suggested in the interviews I’d watched you give, and
in the words you spoke so beautifully when acting. You loved me and you
wanted us to be united. I had been waiting outside your favourite hotel
in London for hours, just hoping you’d booked yourself in, in preparation
for the interviews you would be giving to promote your new clothing range.
The concierge on the front desk had been so unhelpful and had even smirked
at me when I suggested to him I was your fiancé and had the right
to know if you were staying there tonight. As I waited at the bottom of
the steps, angry at being evicted from the hotel lobby, a large, dark
car pulled up and you stepped out! It was almost as if you had heard my
pleas. I gasped open mouthed as you stood by the car smoothing out your
long brown wool coat. You took a drag from a cigarette and then ground
it into the pavement. I resisted the urge to pick up the stub and instead
pulled out my autograph book and smiled sweetly at you. You suddenly noticed
me and a weary smile came over your face. When you spoke to me, I almost
cried with joy. ‘Hello, beautiful, you waiting for me?’
I couldn’t speak, I just nodded and watched entranced as you scrawled
your name over a blank page. You pushed the book back into my hand and
strolled into the hotel lobby, deliberately not glancing back at me to
avoid rousing suspicion of our devotion to each other. I tried to follow
you but was held back by the doorman who roughly pushed me back down the
steps. I watched you walk through the lobby and into the lift and I knew
that you had given me an important message when you spoke to me. I felt
elated, knowing that very soon our names would be linked together.
As I stand here now, counting down the moment, I realise that I’ve
waited years for this to happen. In fact we both have and I don’t
know how you’ve stood the torture, being apart from each other for
so long, trying to hide our love from the Press, your agent, the jealous
fans. As I see you come into view, I smile and lovingly touch the picture
of you I have beside me. My one true love, we are finally going to get
a chance of eternal happiness together. I bend down slightly, adjust the
viewfinder on the rifle and take a deep breath. Yes, my love, I have been
waiting for you, we’ve both been waiting for far too long to be
together and now our time has come to be joined as one. As I take one
last look of your perfect features, exhaling as I squeeze the trigger
and then turning the rifle on myself, I know at last we’ll be together
forever.
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